Virginia Thomas needs $200.

“It’s not for me,” she said, brushing a tear from her eye. “It’s for my son. His feeding tube is supposed to be replaced every six months, but it’s way past time.

“His stomach is getting really raw, and I’m afraid it’s going to get infected and he’ll have to go back in the hospital,” she said. “I’m trying not to let that happen.”

Thomas, a longtime nurse’s aide, has been unemployed since January. She has no money.

“I had surgery on my hands,” she said. “I can’t lift anything. I thought about writing a letter to the newspaper, but I can’t hold a pencil.”

Her son, Donald Cannon, 34, cannot move his arms or legs. He cannot speak. He’s going blind in his left eye.

“He’s in what the doctors call a vegetative state,” Thomas said. “But I don’t see it like that. He can hear. He laughs at things that are funny on TV, so I know there’s a person in there.”

Cannon was injured in a fall from a pickup truck while helping a friend move.

“He was trying to keep a bag of clothes — one of those plastic trash bags that you tie up — from falling off the truck,” Thomas said. “He tried to catch it and fell out. He hit his head.”

Virginia Thomas tends her son, Donald Cannon, at their home. Cannon, 34, suffered a head injury 17 years ago; Thomas has been caring for him ever since. She's trying to pay for a replacement feeding tube that costs about 00; Medicare will only pay 0.

That was 17 years ago. His mother has been taking care of him since.

Medicaid, a government program that ensures health care for the poor, used to pay most of Cannon’s medical bills. But on July 1 he was put on Medicare as well, a move that bumped his disability payments up to $474 a month.

“That was a good thing,” Thomas said, noting that all of the money is spent on Cannon, most of it on medical supplies.

But Thomas soon learned that when someone is on both Medicare and Medicaid, Medicare calls the shots.

And according to Medicare, Cannon’s feeding tube ought to cost $30, even though Thomas’ pharmacist Marvin Bredehoft, who owns Medical Arts Pharmacy, 346 Maine, says he can’t buy one for less than $180; $195 with shipping, handling and paperwork added in.

“Medicaid will pay $174, which is still below what it costs, but it’s better than $30,” Bredehoft said. “But when Medicare is involved, it becomes the primary provider. It sets the rates, so instead of $174, we’re looking at $30 and the family is expected to make up the rest.”

Bredehoft said he’ll sell Thomas the feeding tube at his cost.

“I’m here to help, but I can’t do it at a loss,” he said. “No other supplier will, either.”

Bredehoft said he had argued with Medicare on Thomas’ behalf, to no avail.

Thomas said she was at a loss to explain how her son ended up on Medicare.

“It just happened,” she said.

At the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services office in Lawrence, director Arthurine Criswell said she was familiar with Cannon’s case but offered little comment.

“The issue here is not with SRS,” Criswell said. “It’s with Medicare.”

Journal-World calls Tuesday to a regional Medicare call center were referred to a public information officer in Idaho. Messages left with the officers were not returned.